vadimkulagin / git-store-meta

Simple file metadata storing and applying for git.

git-store-meta

git-store-meta is a light-weight tool for file metadata storing and applying for Git.

Features:

• Light dependency, cross-platform consistent behavior, desirable performance.

• Data files are in plain text format and can be easily revisioned, diffed, or manually modified as needed.

• Supported metadata: mtime, atime, mode, user, uid, group, gid, acl.

• Can store the metadata of git-revisioned files into a data file.

• Can apply the metadata stored in the data file to the working copy.

• Can update the metadata for changed files quickly.

• Can easily pick which metadata fields to store, update, or apply.

• Can determine whether to store, update, or apply directory metadata.

Dependency:

• git (any version)
• sort (any version)
• *nix platform with basic shell environment (required by Git)
• perl >=5.8 with built-in modules (required by Git)
• setfacl, getfacl (optional, for manipulating ACL metadata)
• touch, chown, chgrp (optional, for applying metadata to links)

Usage:

Copy the git-store-meta.pl file to path/to/your/repo/.git/hooks/, change the working directory to the Git working tree, and run one of the commands below.

Store

To store the metadata of all git-revisioned files, run:

.git/hooks/git-store-meta.pl --store -f user,group,mode,mtime,atime

And a data file named .git_store_meta (by default) will be created in your repo, git add it so that the metadata is revisioned.

The --field (-f) option determines which fields are to be stored. Their order matters partially since it affects the order of fields in the data file, but it doesn't affect applying. For example the above command creates a data file with these fields:

<file> <type> <user> <group> <mode> <mtime> <atime>

If --field is not provided, git-store-meta takes the fields defined in the current data file, and thus running .git/hooks/git-store-meta.pl --store works in most usual cases.

The --directory (-d) option can be provided so that all directories under Git revision control have their metadata stored, too.

.git/hooks/git-store-meta.pl --store -d

Apply

To apply (restore) the metadata recorded in the data file, run:

.git/hooks/git-store-meta.pl --apply

And all recorded metadata will be applied to the working tree files.

Fields can be selectively applied. For example, to apply mtime only:

.git/hooks/git-store-meta.pl --apply -f mtime

For a similar reason it'd be preferable to add --directory option so that directory metadata are restored if they have been stored.

.git/hooks/git-store-meta.pl --apply -d

Furthermore, the --verbose (-v) option can be used to info what exactly are being applied.

An --apply can not be run when the working tree or index is dirty, since the data is in an inconsistent state in such case and the apply could be an irreversible mistake. The --force option can be added to skip the check and force the applying.

For a special use case such as to apply metadata for files checked out from a bare repo /path/to/foo to an isolated directory /path/to/bar, related Git environment variables must be explicitly provided to pass the check, such as:

GIT_DIR=../foo GIT_WORK_TREE=. ../foo/hooks/git-store-meta.pl --apply

Update

After a --store and commit, --update can be run to re-scan metadata only for changed files, which is much faster than to re-scan all revisioned files. --directory (-d) can be added so that each changed file makes its ancestor folders re-scanned.

Note that files or directories whose metadata have been changed without any content (or modes Git cares) change will not be awared, and a --store is required if you want to record these metadata changes. Though, conversely, this avoids unintentional metadata changes from being added, and could be preferrable in some cases.

Install

To automatically store files metadata before a commit and restore metadata after a checkout, run:

.git/hooks/git-store-meta.pl --install

The --directory (-d) option can be provided so that all directories under Git revision control have their metadata stored, too:

.git/hooks/git-store-meta.pl --install -d

This will generate a pre-commit and a post-checkout hook for the current Git repo. Of course you can modify the hooks afterwards to fit your needs better.

Note that the installation is skipped if there's already an existed pre-commit or post-checkout hook to avoid a dangerous overwrite. In this case you'd have to rename your existed hook files, run the installation, and merge the hook contents manually.

Note that since Git doesn't provide a "post-reset" hook, git-store-meta doesn't run after a successful git reset --hard. To restore file metadata after a reset, an --apply must be run manually.

Help

For available options and a detail description, run:

.git/hooks/git-store-meta.pl --help

Caveats:

• git-store-meta cannot restore the metadata for symbolic links without the support of system command chown -h, chgrp -h, and touch -h. In those systems metadata of symbolic links are never restored.

• git-store-meta does not record the time more than seconds precision, as it's not supported widely enough and many systems simply ignore it.